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Building the Zone

Creatives are hired to do just that…to create. In most cases, clients will approach us with some glimmer of what they are trying to accomplish, with very little detail or strategy. They see the end result, but cannot envision the path to get them there. It is our job to carry that basic idea into a distinctive, strategic marketing and advertising campaign.

Recently, our friends at J. Waylon & Associates, a Dallas-based public relations agency, asked us to partner on a project for the North Texas GLBT Chamber of Commerce. The Supreme Court had recently ruled in favor of marriage equality, and the Chamber wanted to create a tangible concept for business owners to show their support for this landmark decision. We didn’t hesitate to jump onboard.

The premise: Everyone can shop here. That seems simple enough. Dallas is a legitimately liberal city, with liberal minds, and customers would easily pick up on our messaging. This would be a no-brainer. We hit the ground running with research and development, and began to create storyboards.

What we encountered initially was puzzling and somewhat eye opening. We began to realize that numerous businesses were not eager to declare their support for the Supreme Court decision, or for that matter, the millions of people to which it had just validated. Needless to say, our motivation for this project skyrocketed.

While many of our creative campaigns focus on products or venues, this one focuses on people. People who for far too long had been told they were different – that they were second-class. For our team, this task was different.

We looked at this project from every angle. What would clients want to see? How do businesses want to be represented? What could be perceived as offensive? After much debate, and a lot of back-and-forth, we ultimately returned to our initial premise. Everyone deserves respect when they are purchasing products or services, and thus the LGBT WE Zone campaign was born.

WE for “Welcome Everyone” and Zone to ensure patrons and potential customers that they were shopping in a safe space that respected and celebrated who they are. We chose simple fonts, with simple text on a rainbow-colored barcode. It says, your business matters…you matter.

At the core of Critical Launch is the promise of diversity and inclusion. It is written into our DNA. Every team member and every client we work with understands that our creativity is best realized free of prejudice and discrimination. We wouldn’t have it any other way.